US court seeks 10 year prison term for Anonymous hacktivist Jeremy Hammond

Anonymous hacktivist Jeremy Hammond should receive the maximum
10 year prison term for defacing law enforcement and corporate
websites and stealing 200 gigabytes of email and 60,000 credit card
numbers from a private intelligence firm, prosecutors argued in a
US court filing on 12 November.

"Contrary to the picture he paints of himself… Hammond is a
computer hacking recidivist who, following a federal conviction for
computer hacking, went on to engage in a massive hacking spree
during which he caused harm to numerous businesses, individuals,
and governments, resulting in losses of between $1 million
(£629,000) and $2.5 million (£1.5 million), and threatened the
safety of the public at large, especially law enforcement officers
and their families," the government wrote in a sentencing
memorandum.

Hammond is scheduled for sentencing in New York on Friday before
US District Judge Loretta Preska. The 28-year-old Chicagoan pleaded
guilty earlier this year to the keystone attack of the short-lived
Lulzsec/AntiSec era: a damaging December 2011 intrusion into the
servers of the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting,
Inc., where Hammond bulk-deleted files and stole 5 million private
email messages, which he gave to WikiLeaks.

Unlike most large-scale hacks these days, Hammond's intrusions
were strictly not-for-profit. Hammond has a long history of liberal
activism and direct action, including work for the anti-war group
Food Not Bombs. In 2006 he was sentenced to two years in custody
for hacking the website of a right-wing group. While in jail for
that hack in 2008, he heard about Anonymous and became intrigued,
his lawyers said in a court filing this month.

In 2011, he began staging protest hacks and data thefts against
a range of companies and organisations tied to law enforcement and
defense, including the FBI's Virtual Academy; the Arizona
Department of Public Safety; Brooks-Jeffrey Marketing, Inc.;
Special Forces Gear; Vanguard Defense Industries; the Jefferson
County, Alabama Sheriff's Office; the Boston Police Patrolmen's
Association; and Combined Systems, Inc.

His biggest success came at Stratfor, where he wiped out files
and databases and stole 60,000 credit card numbers belong to
Stratfor subscribers. At Hammond's urging, Anonymous members
promptly loaded up some cards with $700,000 (£440,000) in
fraudulent donations to non-profit groups. Hammond also stole 5
million email messages, which have been trickling out of WikiLeaks
as the "Global Intelligence Files" ever since.

In its sentencing memorandum today, the government quotes from
online chats in which Hammond encouraged Anonymous members to rack
up charges on the Stratfor customer credit cards, and discussed his
ambitions to obliterate the company.

"An equally important part is destroying their servers and
dumping their user/address list and private e-mails with the goal
of destroying the target," he wrote. "I'm hoping bankruptcy,
collapse."

The government's portrait of an angry, destructive intruder
contrasts sharply with the description offered by Hammond's defense
team, who compare him to WikiLeaks source Chelsea (formerly
Bradley) Manning.

"Jeremy saw working with Anonymous and Antisec as an opportunity
to be like Chelsea Manning -- to do his part to access information
that needed to be shared with the people," wrote defense attorneys
Susan Kellman and Sarah Kinstler in a court filing earlier this month.

Hammond was undone by his admiration for a different
hacktivist: Hector
Xavier Monsegur, aka "Sabu," a former computer security
consultant and the ersatz leader of the Lulzsec hacking team.

Monsegur secretly turned informant after the FBI tracked him
down in May 2011, and he became an agent provocateur, publicly
cheerleading for hack attacks against private security contractors
and law enforcement agencies. In this way he ensnared Hammond and
the other Stratfor hackers, and even got them to transfer their
stolen material to an FBI-controlled server.

With his prior hacking conviction and the high financial losses,
Hammond's guilty plea would carry a sentence of 12.5 to 15.5 years
under federal sentencing guidelines. But under the terms of his
plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to a single charge that has a 10
year maximum by statute.

His lawyers are asking for a sentence of 20-months time-served
-- a lower sentence than he received for his previous conviction.
They've submitted to the court over 250 letters from friends,
family, journalists, hackers and internet supporters, including
such notables as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, and
free software pioneer Richard Stallman, who called Hammond "a fine
example of a socially responsible hacker".

"People should not be allowed to enter others' computers without
permission; but when punishing someone for virtual trespassing, we
ought to consider his motive," wrote Stallman. "Those who trespass
as part of a nonviolent protest, either physically or virtually,
should not receive severe punishments. Those who act neither for
gain nor for malice should not receive severe punishments. Imagine
where our country would be if the civil rights and antiwar sit-ins
had been punished by years in prison!"

The government is unimpressed by the outpouring of support.

"Hammond's history of recidivism and complete disregard for the
law belies his current claim at sentencing that he will not
re-engage in this same criminal conduct upon his release from
prison," the government wrote.

"Moreover, Hammond's own statements prior to his arrest show
that, contrary to his contentions now, Hammond was motivated by a
malicious and callous contempt for those with whom he disagreed,
particularly anyone remotely related to law enforcement, not a
'concern with both transparency and privacy.'"